


Heaven on Earth

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddling, Declarations Of Love, M/M, Sweet, light kisses, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:34:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25313911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: Aziraphale finally asks Crowley something that he's wondered about for 6,000 years.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 122





	Heaven on Earth

_“I am an angel. You are a demon. We’re hereditary enemies.”_

What happened after the beginning of the rest of their lives was this: Crowley simply never left.

Aziraphale decided not to question it. After the park, after the Ritz, after their toast to the restored world and to each other, they drank and they ate and then they drank some more, followed by a late afternoon stroll through St. James’s, and a slow, leisurely walk on to the bookshop, where he had put up the CLOSED sign, locked the door, and pulled down all the blinds.

He watched his dearest friend saunter over to the sofa, watched him sprawl upon it. And there he stayed…for the rest of that evening, for all that night, until the morning, without comment. The next day, Aziraphale kept the CLOSED sign up and the blinds down. He puttered around the shop, and made tea, and then he made a quick jaunt down to the café for breakfast-to-go, and a bit later for lunch, and in the evening he ordered dinner delivered from his favorite Thai restaurant.

Crowley never left.

They chatted idly, companionably. They ate, and had tea, and later in the day they had wine. They played a game of chess. They took another walk to the park to feed the ducks. Aziraphale read for a few hours in the evening while Crowley looked at whatever interested him on his phone. 

And so it went, day after day. At the end of the third day, Aziraphale offered him the use of the bedroom upstairs, and Crowley took him up on it.

They talked about the end of the world. Certain apologies were made—one involving a false claim of not being friends, one involving an equally false claim to run off to the stars without another thought.

They talked about Heaven and Hell, and trials or the lack thereof, and about the proper method for instilling terror into powerful supernatural beings.

They talked about a remarkable group of kids who had faced off the Four Horsemen and won, and they talked about an unusual young woman and her blessedly incompetent boyfriend, and wished them all well.

Day after day, night after night…Crowley simply never left.

He equally simply never mentioned the fact that he hadn’t left, nor did Aziraphale bring up the fact that he seemed to now have a permanent new fixture in his bookshop—a comfortable, familiar presence which he never wanted to lose.

On the fifth day, after a long lunch at his favorite sushi place, they returned to the bookshop as usual, and Crowley settled on the sofa as he always did while Aziraphale made tea, as usual. But instead of sitting in his armchair, as he always did, this afternoon Aziraphale chose to join Crowley on the sofa. 

Having talked about a great many things, not only in the past few days but over sixty centuries of knowing one another, Aziraphale decided the topic today would be the beginning of all things between them.

As he handed the angel-winged mug of Earl Grey to his friend, he said, “There is something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a little over six thousand years now.”

Crowley looked at the mug, sniffed the tea, and took a sip. Then he turned his gaze on Aziraphale, his sunglasses long discarded, one eyebrow quirked upward. “Really?” He lips twitched into a half-smile. “And it can’t wait another century or two?”

“Well, we _are_ immortal. Time tends to move in a different rhythm for us, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale took a few sips of his tea. “But I suppose this is as good a time as any.” He met Crowley’s gaze with a brief smile. “I can only hold my curiosity in check for so long, you know.”

“Six thousand years, apparently. Fine. What is it, then—must be from Eden, if it’s that old.”

“Precisely, from our first meeting. In fact, it’s about the reason for that first meeting. It did rather bother me at the time, but I had a few more pressing issues to deal with—such as fretting over a missing sword, and what I was supposed to do next, and where I was supposed to go, and it slipped my mind.” 

He paused to drink more tea, savoring it, and then ran his tongue over his lips after. 

Crowley tapped his fingers against the side of his mug. “What, exactly, bothered you?”

Aziraphale cradled his mug in both hands as he thought back to that remarkable day, when he had been joined atop the wall of Eden by the last being he would have ever expected to meet. “I was your hereditary enemy. You knew that I had a flaming sword. Yet you slithered up ever so casually, just to chat, as if we were _friends_. What I’ve always wanted to know is _why?”_

Crowley grinned. “Just couldn’t resist your angelic charms.”

Aziraphale smiled softly and said, “Be serious.”

“Yeah, but…well…I mean, er. Um.” Crowley looked away. “I just…does it matter now? After all this time?”

Clearly this was uneasy territory for his friend to revisit. Aziraphale set his mug on the coffee table, and shifted closer. He rested his hand on Crowley’s arm. “You have always been by my side. Even during the years we didn’t see each other, and even when we argued—I felt your presence at my side, no matter how physically far apart we might have been. You were always there.” He took Crowley’s hand in his, interlacing their fingers. “And it has been that way since the beginning, so please do tell me why.”

He felt his friend’s fingers tighten briefly against his own. “Right.” Crowley set down his own mug, and leaned back with a sigh. He closed his eyes. “Right. The wall of Eden.”

“Your sworn enemy is standing there,” Aziraphale said, gently urging him along. “For all you know, he is still armed. You have just got Adam and Eve expelled, and the angel has every right to be angry or vengeful. Don’t bother telling me that you came up there merely because you were feeling lonely, or bored, or to be charmingly amusing.” He squeezed Crowley’s hand. “Though you were that, I must admit.”

“Yeah, well, you could just as easily tell _me_ why an angel allowed his sworn enemy to say so much as one word to him.”

“Sorry. I asked you first.”

Crowley opened his eyes. “Oh, we’re taking turns, are we?”

“I suppose that’s only fair.” Aziraphale shifted again, closing the final inches between them, shoulder against shoulder, thigh against thigh. “Go on, then.” He rubbed his thumb over the top of Crowley’s hand, still entwined in his own. “My dear, you must know that it is perfectly all right, that you can tell me anything at all.”

Crowley’s brow furrowed, and he rubbed his other hand across his eyes, but then he dropped his hand and his features relaxed. “Anything at all…that’s true, isn’t it?” 

Aziraphale simply nodded, and waited.

“Fine.” Crowley took a steadying breath. “The garden of Eden. An angel who, when I first saw him before that little bit of tempting I did, had a flaming sword. Not a good combination.” 

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“And then the poor humans got kicked out, and you stood on the wall all alone, watching them leave. So my job was over—they said get up there and make some trouble, and I did. Could have slithered right back downstairs, gotten a commendation, all said and done. But I didn’t.”

“Precisely.” Aziraphale had wondered about it for such a long, long time.

“Do you know,” Crowley said haltingly, “what I missed most about Heaven?” He looked down at their joined hands. “This. Affection. Friendship.” He paused. “Love. I’m sure you know they don’t have any of those things in Hell. No one else down there seemed to care, either, or to even remember what they’d once had, or maybe they hadn’t wanted it at all—I don’t know. But I did remember what I’d had, and what I’d lost.” 

Crowley's voice faltered, and his lips trembled. “I missed it so much.”

Aziraphale reached out with his free had to touch his hair, stroking it. “Hush. It’s all right. Tell me.”

Crowley closed his eyes again, and took another deep breath. He swallowed, and then continued. “Do you know how long it had been since I’d felt anything remotely like happiness?” He opened his eyes and turned towards Aziraphale. “Do you know how much I wanted to return to Heaven? I never knew why I’d fallen. I never understood why I was in Hell, still able to remember what love felt like, when that wasn’t the way things worked down there, so I thought it must have been a mistake—except God doesn’t make mistakes.”

Aziraphale left off stroking his hair to run his fingers along Crowley’s cheek, where he brushed away a tear. “You didn’t fall. You were given a divine push.”

Crowley nodded. “Know that now.”

“That’s why you were different from the rest. She made you a fallen angel, but not a true demon. She needed you to keep hold of love. Love for the world, to save it…and a longing for friendship, to have someone worth saving it for.”

For _him_ —Crowley was always meant to save the world for the sake of an angel—for the sake of keeping love alive.

He let his fingers drift across Crowley’s lips before caressing his cheek once more, and then he brushed his hand through his hair again before resting it on the back of his neck. 

“When I saw you on the wall,” Crowley said, “I saw a part of Heaven—I saw everything that I’d lost, and I just…I just wanted to be close to it again. That’s all. That’s the reason I went up there. To see what it felt like, to be near an angel…I wanted to feel affection. Yeah, you might have still had that sword—couldn’t tell, didn’t really care. It was a risk worth taking, so I took it. Even if it was the briefest encounter, that didn’t matter. Just one moment—I wanted to feel heaven’s light for just one moment—to know that I _could_ feel it. And I did. You let me.” He shook his head. “Not sure why.”

It pained Aziraphale to imagine Crowley trapped in Hell’s darkness. “I’m so sorry.” He let go his hand so he could wrap an arm around his friend. “I’m so very glad that I didn’t spurn you.”

Crowley eased into the embrace. “Your turn, then. Why didn’t you?”

“Well, I’ll admit that you startled me so much that I wasn’t sure how to react.” Aziraphale thought back to that terribly confusing moment. “Then it quickly became clear that you weren’t threatening, and it felt good to talk about what had happened—and about how worried I was. Really rather odd, I thought, to be comforted by a demon.”

“Not supposed to be our strong suit, no.”

There had been something even more unexpected. “No, indeed not. But then I sensed something even more peculiar. I sensed affection from you. Not possible, of course. But it was there, all the same.”

“Couldn’t help it. It felt so good to be so close to a part of Heaven again, and then you admitted giving away your sword. That’s when it happened. That was the moment when I knew that I hadn’t lost everything after all. That I might still be capable of feeling love.”

“Really?” Aziraphale didn’t quite understand. “Why did that make you feel affection for me?”

Crowley smiled. “Because it meant you might have _messed things up_. I didn’t think angels did that—except for me. I was the only one who somehow messed up without meaning to, and wound up in Hell. Not that I thought you would make a mistake big enough to cause you to fall—that wasn’t the point. The point was, you weren’t perfect. And that made me feel less alone.”

It made sense to him now. Aziraphale rested his head on Crowley’s chest, relishing the warmth between them. “I gave you hope.”

“Yes.” He felt Crowley’s lips on his forehead, the lightest of touches.

For such a long, long time, Aziraphale had worried over his duty to Heaven, had fretted about whether he was doing the right things in the right ways. He had spent centuries wondering if being close to Crowley was the wrong thing to do. 

It had never been the wrong thing.

“You know,” he said, “it’s been rather a long time since I felt free from worry over the choices I’ve made.” He did feel free inside now, a heady feeling of release. Because, in the end, he had chosen love over duty, and that had been, without a doubt in the world, the right thing to do.

Crowley gently stroked the back of Aziraphale’s head, his fingers playing with his curls. “So, are you happy?”

“I am.” Such an unusual feeling, to be wholly content. “Are you?”

“Angel, you gave me back everything that I’d lost from Heaven. How could I be anything else?”

A tremor of sheer joy rippled through Aziraphale at that admission. All the times he had been so certain that he was making a misstep—just being with Crowley and feeling more complete in his presence, or all the times he had taken him up on the Arrangement, or the moment when he felt love fall into place alongside friendship—he was only taking steps to this place, here with the one who loved him in return, here where he truly belonged.

Crowley held him, and caressed him, and every touch felt glorious. Aziraphale held him and caressed him in return, and then he paused to place a hand on Crowley’s chest. “I do love you.”

“Yeah? That’s a good thing.”

“Really?” Aziraphale produced a slightly exasperated sigh. “You might try saying it back, you know.” 

“Pretty sure I already implied it.”

“Possibly.”

“Well, then.” Crowley loosened his hold. He lifted Aziraphale’s chin, and met his gaze, and then he smiled as he said, “Tell me when I haven’t loved you.”

In truth, Aziraphale had felt that deep affection coming from Crowley atop the wall of Eden, and he had never stopped feeling it since, as unwavering as the sun, the moon, and the stars above. “I can’t.” He touched Crowley’s lips. “But I happen to adore words. What an extraordinary invention language is. We can express whatever our hearts desire, in so many astonishing ways. You know, I rather miss Elizabethan times—they had a much more poetic tongue than we have nowadays.”

“Hm.” Crowley kissed his fingertips. “You mean, like this… _Aziraphale, I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?”_

“Ah. Yes, that will do nicely. Thank you.” 

“Any time, Angel.”

_What now,_ he wondered. He probably ought to kiss the dear fellow properly, or perhaps not quite so properly….

Aziraphale kissed his best friend, and it was heavenly.

And his best friend kissed him back, and that, too, was quite lovely all round.

They stayed on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon, simply nestled together in a warm and lazy embrace, until it occurred to Aziraphale that it might finally be time to mention something he had been keeping quiet about for five days running.

“My dear, are your houseplants in danger of perishing soon?”

“What?” Crowley started. “Oh, hell. I forgot all about them.” He sat up, disentangling himself from Aziraphale’s arms. “How long have I been here?”

“This is the fifth day.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ve been counting.”

“Oh.” Crowley rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Sorry.”

“Go home and apologize to your plants, not to me.”

“Yeah, but—I mean…I’d have to leave here…you know. Be away from here…er…um…what I mean is—damn. I don’t want to.”

Aziraphale patted his thigh. “I absolutely adore you, but it is perfectly all right to abandon me for the hour or so it might take to go home and water your poor plants. I’ll be fine.”

Crowley pursed his lips. “But it’s _not_ home.”

“It isn’t? Oh.” That’s why he hadn’t left. The bookshop felt like _home_ for him, and now that Aziraphale thought about it, this had probably always been true. “Well, I suppose this place could do with a few houseplants.”

“It could? I mean, yes! Of course it could.” Crowley leapt off the sofa in one fluid bound. “I’ll go get them! No, wait.” He unceremoniously pulled Aziraphale up. “Come with me. There are a lot of them, and they’re big, and…and—can I really move in here? Yes? Right. Of course I can. You love me. Damn!”

Aziraphale had always felt great joy whenever his friend got excited about anything—at the way his whole being seemed to light up as his emotions overflowed. “Yes, I want you to move in.” 

Crowley hugged him. “Right. Good. Come on, let’s get everything. Plants, statues, paintings, souvenirs—”

“Very well. We’ll find room for whatever you want to bring over.” Aziraphale hugged him back. “When we’ve finished, I’d like to have dinner at the Ritz, with champagne. Lots of it.”

Crowley grabbed his sunglasses. “Extraordinary amounts of it, Angel. Let’s celebrate all night long. Maybe tomorrow, too. And the next day. Week. Month. Year. _Millennium_.”

“That sounds like a very fine plan.”

And so it proved to be.


End file.
